Fig & Walnut Spaghetti

We have moved a couple of blocks. It turned out that living with a lousy kitchen was too hard for us. So now we are spending our last week in San Francisco in the Castro district. With a real kitchen to cook in and a small garden to eat in. It’s perfect! And we immediately started cooking.

We haven’t posted many pasta recipes on this blog. It’s simply because we rarely eat pasta at home. But when we do, we try to use a good whole wheat or gluten free pasta (Doves Farm is one of our gluten free favorites).

This recipe started with this bag of black mission figs that we spotted in the Bi Rite Market on 18th street. The figs looked so perfectly soft and ripe that we almost expected them to burst as we were looking at them. We immediately started fantasizing what we could do with them. And as we were walking around inside the food store, we came up with a pasta dish with roasted walnuts and goat cheese, a squeeze of a lemon, spinach, garlic and some white wine. It sounds good, right? We bought all the ingredients and rushed home to make this pasta while it was still fresh in our heads.

We started cooking. Put the water to a boil, roasted the walnuts, tasted the wine while looking for the bag of figs … the bag of figs … the bag of figs! Oh no, as we had been walking around dreaming about this fig pasta, we had forgotten to buy the figs that started it all.

So we had to prepare the dish as we had imagined it, but without the figs. And as we were eating it we were constantly closing our eyes, imaging the taste of those soft and sweet mission figs.

The day after we went back to the store, bought the figs and made the same dish all over again. And this time we didn’t have to imagine anything.

Boil the spaghetti al dente, according to the instructions on the package, and set aside when done. Add olive oil to a large frying pan on medium heat. Add garlic and let it sweat for about 30 seconds before adding 2/3 of the wine and the lemon juice. Stir around, add spinach and goat cheese while stirring (save a small piece of the goat cheese for later). Let it simmer for three minutes before adding the spaghetti and the roasted walnuts. Stir for 30 seconds, taste it and add salt if needed, make sure that the spaghetti is covered in the goat cheese/wine/lemon cream then turn off the heat. Add the figs and gently fold them into the pasta. Serve on a big plate or in a bowl with the rest of the goat cheese and lemon peel sprinkled over it.

Those are some gorgeous looking figs. I love how your recipes are often surprising yet simple and easy to approach. And of course, your food styling and photographing always makes everything look absolutely irresistible!

Wow, SF, living in Castro – for me it sounds like living the dream. The best place I ever visited was San Fran, I sure hope I can return some day. Did you have the amazing burritos in the Mexican part of town yet? :)

Oh wow, I think you may have created the perfect non-sauce spaghetti dish I have ever seen! I love figs with goat cheese, and never thought to mix it in with pasta. Looks like a beautiful healthy dish, and I can’t wait to try it. Great idea!

Oh my gosh I love figs- this combination vegan style sounds like I might have to give it a try! I might interchange the cheese with a cashew cheese perhaps. Sounds like the 3 of you are having such an enjoyable time together. Savour, Savour! We had only one child for 10 years, so simple and transportable. He’s now 18 and we now have 3 kids- time flies and suddenly you are 5! We still savour every minute but we mobilize a lot slower! Love seeing your journey unfold:)

Mmmmmm or as the French say “miam miam” – looks delectable! So simple, but elegant. I plan to head to the sunday organic market and make this tomorrow, especially with the best goat cheese on the planet, may I add – you’ll have to come to Paris and try it sometime ok? LOVE your site – très bien! Thanks for sharing your fabulous recipes and postcards of your lives!

I picked some kale and fig up at the market on Saturday and had to give this a try. Wow – I am so glad that I did! I felt like I was eating at some extravagant restaurant and the best bit is that it was oh so easy to make. Thanks for sharing your wonderful recipes and for your enthusiasm. My boyfriend will be making the hazelnut and mushroom loaf tomorrow and I am looking forward to trying it!

Delicious recipe, thank you for sharing! I knew I wouldn’t be able to find any figs, so I used nectarines instead, which worked well. I substituted mozzarella for regular goat cheese as I don’t like the strong taste. Next time I’ll chop the walnuts first, to spread it more evenly.

Thank you for a very inspiring blog – even vegetarians need inspiration sometimes.
This recipe I know I will love, and since I have family in California and have spent a lot of time there I too can imagine the figs in my mouth. Problem is, how do I find good fresh figs in Stockholm?? They are always so tart and almost shrivelled.. Since you know where to find good food I thought I’d ask. :)

This was quite good! I didn’t salt it quite enough, so I’ll make sure to add more to my leftovers for tomorrow.

A note about the recipe: You didn’t mention what to do with the garlic (I used my garlic press to plop it into the hot oil) or the rest of the 1 cup white wine (I poured it over the spinach as it was cooking).

I just made this recipe last night after finding fresh figs at the store. I have to say that this is my favorite dish that I’ve made of yours (and I’ve made quite a few). The combination of flavors was outstanding! Sweet, salty, savory–all in one bite.

We tried this recipe tonight. Though we exchanged the figs with pears! It was lovely! (Even made the pasta ourselves).
We will do it again with figs for sure.
Love how simple it is to make – yet something special to the normal pasta dishes we have!